Scavenging for abandoned food and swarming madly in search of soda cans, a swarm of yellow jackets congregate around a large red trash can and buzz around John Waddick’s bench seat outside of Lawson Hall.

Waddick, a freshman in forestry from Chicago, patiently allows the yellow jackets to enter and then leave his vicinity.

Waddick is just one of many SIUC student who must deal with yellow jackets this time of year.

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I was attacked by a swarm of bees once, and I got stung a bunch of times, Waddick said. Now I know that if you leave wasps and bees alone, they won’t sting you.

J.E. McPherson, a professor of zoology, said this time of year is notorious for scavenging yellow jackets.

Yellow jackets are annual social wasps that are generally very aggressive this time of the year, McPherson said. They are so aggressive because this is a time of the year when they are most abundant and their food sources are least abundant.

In the underground yellow jacket colonies, only females are produced in the spring. The colony continues to thrive and reproduce more and more females until the fall, when males are produced, McPherson said.

Before the males are produced in the fall, it’s like women’s lib gone to extreme in yellow jacket colonies, McPherson said. The colonies become so large in the underground hole that food becomes scarce.

That’s why they go looking for food and sugar around trash cans.

Jenny Robertson, a freshman in marketing from Elgin, said she knows better than to swat at the sometimes-persistent yellow jackets.

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I’m allergic to bee and wasp stings, she said. If I get stung, then I’ll stop breathing.

McPherson said only female yellow jackets have stinging capabilities, and they only sting in self-defense.

If you swat at a yellow jacket, he said, you are asking for it.

Robertson said she would never swat at a yellow jacket, but she thought it was interesting that only females could sting.

That’s cool, Robertson said. It’s like female power.

Understanding the behavior patterns of yellow jackets and other wasps and bees can help prevent stings.

If you cover trash cans up you may prevent them from coming around, McPherson said. But they like soda, and they like beer.

If it (trash) is out there, they are going to find it.

Waddick said yellow jackets always seem to be present on campus.

I don’t like the yellow jacket because they attack in swarms, he said. But I do like them better than flies.